New Innovative Dyson FluffyCones PencilVac

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Im not to sure about the name but it looks really interesting and it’s the first ever Dyson not to have cyclone technology
 
The Dyson Hair Screw ( customer screw ) is a blatant copy of a Panasonic power nozzle design that has been around for quite a few years used with both stick vacs and certain Japan market canister vacs. Panasonic's version has two tapered brush rolls attached at each end of the power nozzle, tapering towards the center with a small gap between them. Any hair or fibers work their way down the taper to the center and are sucked up into the suction opening. Attached is a video showing it's development by the engineer at Panasonic responsible for its design.

Yes I am weird for Japan market vacuums. Japan is this parallel universe of innovative, ultra powerful and sometimes just plain strange vacuum cleaners.

Also, my own candidate for the best hand held upholstery brush is the Vorwerk Polsterboy 420. Unlike every other upholstery brush, it uses two counter rotating brush rolls oriented along the axis of the hose rather than 90 degrees to it. You don't push it back and fourth. Rather you sweep side to side and it does the best job of removing cat and dog hair from upholstery of any such attachment I have used.

 
Here is the Vorwerk Kobold Polsterboy I love. I have one I use with a 100 volt Tiger 260 I bought in Japan. In Asia Pacific Kobold sells their vacuums with Lux branding and the Tiger 260-270 were sold as the Lux Sora.


 
What the f[[50% off!]] did I just watch?

A few thoughts if I may.

*What kind of name is Fluffycones Pencilvac? My brain didn't even register it being for a Dyson product when I first saw it. What's next, the Dyson Diddlydingdongvac?

*It's cool seeing them not using their cyclone designs for this, which isn't saying much, but it's one less thing to worry about.

*The bin size of that thing probably makes a Kirby Dirt Meter look like a Shop Vac in comparison. It probably can't even do quick clean-ups without you needing to stop halfway through and empty it. I'll say this much, the less there is for it to collect, the more clean emptying would probably be. It also looks like you're extending the barrel of a Particle Thrower from Ghostbusters when you empty it, so that's kind of cool.

*The powerhead design gives me major Windtunnel V2 vibes in terms of how each roller is powered by its own motor, which even said Windtunnel V2 had the sense not to do. Seems like more things to break.

*I don't understand Dyson's obsession with making their motors tiny, at least not for their vacuums. I get that the size of a motor doesn't necessarily mean that it's more powerful, but the same goes for the opposite (even more so). I'm really curious to see what these things waterlift and CFM numbers are.

*What even is the point of this thing? I get that Japanese homes are generally a lot smaller from what I've heard about them, but even this seems way too small for one. At that point just buy a normal Dyson cordless (not that those are good choices either, but I think you get the idea). Oh, and it's apparently going to be released overseas too, so then it'll be even less practical.

*I hope Dyson is not using modern slave labor to construct these things, as I've heard brought against them.

*In short, it's innovative alright, innovative in the sense that they've found brand new ways to mess up stick vacuums.
 
Electrolux USA used to sell a version of the Ambassador canister in Japan branded as the Concordia Tiger. I remember seeing one advertised on a Japanese flea market site, probably the Japanese Mercari site, as an "antique vacuum" followed by "it's no Dyson". I had to swallow my vomit on that one. For whatever reason Dyson is revered in Japan.

This fluffy cone thing is a derivative of several Japanese powerhead features from years, even decades past. Panasonic had a power nozzle they called "W-Drive" because it had a pair of intermeshing counter rotating brush rolls. Needed more motor for use on carpets but ok on floors and tatami mats. Google up the Panasonic MC-PA20W to see one. And some of you might remember the Cen-Tec CT-10QD "Quiet Response" brush roll from about ten years ago, also sold with a Kenmore branded bagless canister and the Panasonic MC-CG955, that had a shutter on the front that lifted up as you pushed the nozzle against the base board to allow the rotating brush to get right into that junction between the floor and base board. That was a Sanyo design they used for many years that Panasonic built for a short period of time after Panasonic's 2010 acquisition of Sanyo. Google up the Sanyo Airsis or the Panasonic MC-SXJ4000 Airsis (Panasonic kept making Sanyo's Airsis series as they were revered back then, the most expensive vacuum ever made in Japan with ULPA filtering )to see one. And then of course the cone shaped brushes are a rip off of the Panasonic anti-tangle power nozzle design.

If any of you are so inclined I highly recommend buying a modern Japanese canister vacuum from either Panasonic or Hitachi. Some of them have stunning power, more than anything you can buy here in the US and they do it on 100 volts and at most 15 amps (1500 watts total). Japan has a way of rating vacuums called "Suction Work Rate" expressed in watts. The standard takes the sealed suction and multiplies this by the amount of air moved over a period of time ( one minute I believe ) times a factor. A modern Tristar ( or an old one for that matter ) is rated at 190 watts Suction Work Rate. Modern Mieles manage about 220 watts. My Lux 1R D820 with the VM-3 motor is rated at 240 watts. The Hungarian built D-820s with the 535 air watt Domel motor is rated at 280 watts Suction Work Rate. My Vorwerk Tiger is rated at 190 watts. You get the idea. The most powerful Panasonic canisters are rated at 600 watts (some from 2010-2011 were rated at 640 )and Hitachi has canisters rated from 650-680 watts. You can put one of those BAIRD meter things on the bottom of a Hitachi wand, not just the hose but the wand, extend the wand fully, turn the vacuum on and it pegs the BAIRD meter with a loud click. The yellow disc doesn't just kind of move slowly to the 10 mark. I pegs immediately with a loud click. Their hoses run 45-48 mm inside diameter. Big holes for big airflow. We use Japanese canister vacuums a lot in our US home. Most run fine on 115 volts and their plugs are the same as ours.
 
It almost looks to me like a very expensive swiffer or an expensive iteration of the swivel g-sweeper. We all know it’s going to be astronomically priced (at least $400-$500) and for only hard floors and a tiny capacity, I hope it doesn’t come here because most Americans take the approach that if you have hard floors you don’t need a vacuum. If they have a vacuum it certainly isn’t an expensive one that only does hard floors. Dyson hasn’t seemed to learn between the failure of the DC56 Hard, the V6 fluffy, and the recent Omni-Glide that a hard floors only vacuum in America just isn’t a good seller typically.
I’m interested to see how that filteration system works and I noticed in the diagram that the exhaust air flows through all of the circuitry so that’ll probably work great when dust gets past the motor and blows all over the circuitry. Kind of like how the circuit board was in the air path of the DC15. I guess they didn’t learn from that. Ideally, if dust didn’t get into the exhaust stream it would be fine, but we all know it will. If Shark hadn’t already coined the name “wand vac” that name would certainly have been appropriate for this machine as it really looks like just an extension wand. You know they had to have chuckled to themselves giving it the name “pencilvac fluffy cones”. Maybe it translates in Japanese to a more sophisticated name? Who knows. I won’t be buying one if and when they make their way to America.
 
"I think it just changes the way you clean."

Nope, I'm not buying another cordless stick vac once my other one dies completely. I'd buy another broom and dust pan that'd certainly last for many years. And certainly nothing beats a corded hose vacuum for bare floors.
 
The Dyson Hair Screw ( customer screw ) is a blatant copy of a Panasonic power nozzle design that has been around for quite a few years used with both stick vacs and certain Japan market canister vacs. Panasonic's version has two tapered brush rolls attached at each end of the power nozzle, tapering towards the center with a small gap between them. Any hair or fibers work their way down the taper to the center and are sucked up into the suction opening. Attached is a video showing it's development by the engineer at Panasonic responsible for its design.

Yes I am weird for Japan market vacuums. Japan is this parallel universe of innovative, ultra powerful and sometimes just plain strange vacuum cleaners.

Also, my own candidate for the best hand held upholstery brush is the Vorwerk Polsterboy 420. Unlike every other upholstery brush, it uses two counter rotating brush rolls oriented along the axis of the hose rather than 90 degrees to it. You don't push it back and fourth. Rather you sweep side to side and it does the best job of removing cat and dog hair from upholstery of any such attachment I have used.


Looks like the hair screw tool and this came out around the same time. Since it's been available on Dysons since 2022. We'd have to check patents and see who came up with it first or something.
 
I have had one of the Panasonic anti tangle power nozzles for at least three years now, maybe longer. I bought it thinking it would adapt to my existing Panasonic canisters but the wand diameters are wrong.
 
The Dyson Hair Screw ( customer screw ) is a blatant copy of a Panasonic power nozzle design that has been around for quite a few years

Wow!!! It is a knock-off of a Panasonic design!!!

An interesting claim. A simple fact check resolved this.


Also, my own candidate for the best hand held upholstery brush is the Vorwerk Polsterboy 420. Unlike every other upholstery brush, it uses two counter rotating brush rolls oriented along the axis of the hose rather than 90 degrees to it. You don't push it back and fourth. Rather you sweep side to side and it does the best job of removing cat and dog hair from upholstery of any such attachment I have used.

Incidentally, I reviewed the Vorwerk upholstry cleaner...I concluded with evidence that it was absolutely terrible and like a scam


Which makes me wonder how it's going to prevent loss of suction if it has no cyclonic separation to do it.

Lacking cyclones does reduce separation efficiency, but this compromise was necessary for a product that thin. What they’ve got is the next best thing and is a novel new hybrid of mechanical and inertial separation. Large particles (greater than the mesh pore size of about 350 µm) are inertially separated, rather than mechanically separated by the mesh, by virtue of their large momentum and ability to continually aerodynamically wash the shroud of blinding material. This also compacts the dirt on entry. Smaller particles would normally then be taken out at the next stage by cyclones, leaving particles mostly smaller than 0.3 µm for the final filters. Instead, the filter has to get these, but it has a much larger surface area (bit like a bag) by virtue of its long formfactor, so clogging will still take some time. The other factor is that this product is a quick hard floor surface sweeper, so may not encounter as much dirt. The filter will still need rinsing more often though than a cyclonic counterpart.

For their imminent flagship cleaner, this concept of non-cyclonic inertial separation to avoid shroud blinding is incorporated into the main bin. The details of the design and advantages are discussed in my recent lecture video https://youtu.be/_CzzDiArrrg. Essentially, instead of a first stage cyclone, the same method of continual aerodynamic washing occurs on entry to keep the shroud clear and prevent blinding. The smaller particles that escape are taken out by new ‘piston’ cyclones, which just means the number in use scales with airflow (power mode) to maximise cyclonic separation efficiency in lower power modes relative to earlier products. Then the HEPA does the rest. There is also significant energy saving with the linear design by virtue of not needing to turn the air on bin entry to make the initial cyclone, following Newton's laws, which means you can run it with lower power consumption whilst retaining performance (battery saving). There are other substantial advantages with the design also discussed in the lecture video.
 
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*I don't understand Dyson's obsession with making their motors tiny, at least not for their vacuums. I get that the size of a motor doesn't necessarily mean that it's more powerful, but the same goes for the opposite (even more so). I'm really curious to see what these things waterlift and CFM numbers are.
There is a very good and logical reason for why they're making their motors smaller. Happy to explain if you're interested.
 
Interestingly, I've never been ‘biased’ towards Dyson; that’s just a smear. I never directly recommend their products when people ask on my channel (in fact, I had my head bitten off today for refusing to do so). I’ve only ever had interest in genuinely innovative and useful technology (distinct from gimmicks) which actually solves problems and makes the chore easier. Sadly, only Dyson are truly innovating and spending the huge sums of money and time on original R&D and coming up with all the new ideas and advancements. So, since they’re always talked about on my channel for doing that, it can look like I’m biased towards them. I can tell you though, if Shark or Panasonic or whoever were pumping out major innovations that everyone else copied, I’d be all over them in just the same way. But they don’t, so I’m not.

Anyway, the reason why Dyson have focussed on motors recently is, again, because of the desire to innovate. In short, they wanted to do away with the huge bulk, weight, cumbersomeness, and materials consumption (environmental impact) of the upright (cylinder etc.) mains formfactor. After their first handheld devices that were like the old dust devils, they put 2 and 2 together and realised you could actually make an entire vacuum cleaner that was hand-sized, relatively lightweight, battery powered, and therefore much smaller and more convenient to use. But since the motor generates the low pressure necessary to make a vacuum work and were traditionally very heavy (most of the weight of most uprights), holding that kind of weight in the hand was impractical. So, the obvious solution is to make it smaller. But if you make a motor, and its impellor, smaller, then you reduce the force you can impart onto the air. You can compensate for this if you make the motor spin faster. So, while smaller motors are lighter, more practical, and would work for handheld devices, to produce the same air power (not electrical power) needed, they need to spin faster. Making a motor impellor spin REALLY fast (like 100 times faster), as it turns out you need, is actually really hard. They spent years figuring out how to do that. It required new advanced materials (like PEEK), clever physical design to optimise aerodynamics, and sophisticated electromagnetic engineering (with high frequency pole switching on specially made magnetic materials etc.). There’s only one other company I’m aware of (Dreame, founded by a uni graduate in China who specialised in computational fluid mechanics) that has achieved a motor that (they claim) is approaching what Dyson achieved (I reviewed their latest product with it recently). This kind of small motor is also a very high-pressure motor necessary to overcome pressure losses (sustain suction) in the presence of higher air currents sometimes experienced in vacuum cleaners and achieve enough air power (airwatts). Of course, once they’d nailed the general initial motor design, that small motor could be put into all kinds of other air-related products, hence why they branched out into hand dryers, hair dryers/stylers, and this new pencilvac hard floor sweeper. Apparently, their hair care line now brings in comparable money, and the main bulk, as their vacuum cleaners—hence why Shark and others have jumped on the bandwagon as well with dupes.

The cordless stickvac formfactor they invented is obviously something that’s better, since literally every other major manufacturer now has their own clone (including Sebo soon). This is what I mean by advancing and innovation. Everyone copies off Dyson because their technological advancements do make things better (otherwise, why would you copy). Even Sebo are touting the virtues of cyclones in their upcoming cordless stickvac promo, now Dyson’s patent has expired, and everyone can freely use them.

What Dyson are about to release in their flagship product looks really impressive and advances all the major technologies in a vacuum cleaner. If they even manage to get their own proprietary solid-state batteries in there as well (if they’re ready yet), that’s a fundamental revolution in battery technology that will eventually change all battery products in the world as solid state likely dominates by the end of the decade. Longer term, they’re even researching to advance beyond cyclones (for various other good energetic reasons I won’t go into here). I discuss it on my YT.

(Some of my perfectly reasonable posts are ‘held’ for moderator review, which doesn’t seem to ever happen, so if I go quiet, you know what’s gone wrong)
 

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